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"Did you want to join in the fun?" Those of its wings which held the body raised it a little to give a better view. "It can be arranged."

"No," he said. "I came to stop you."

"Stop us?" The thing laughed. Its fangs were stained with dried gore. "You think you can stop us? That anything can?"

"That’s why I came. If I didn’t know I could stop you I wouldn’t have come."

"We’ve been watching you," the thing said. The tongue of its ox head licked at the blood on one wing. "All alone on that beast of yours, plodding up the trail We were wondering where you were headed, but we didn’t think you’d be stupid enough to come...here."

All alone? Either they hadn’t seen the demon or it was mocking him. "Why are you doing this?" he asked.

"Why not? It’s fun, and they deserved it." It bent its lion head to stare at him. "As I am sure you deserve, too. Begone, before I look too deep into you."

He stood his ground. "Where are the rest of the people?" he asked. "Did you kill them all?"

"There are a few left." The thing motioned with its eagle’s head, to the side. "If you would join them, and their fate, they are to be found there."

He looked in the direction the thing had indicated. The building was of yellow stone, with rough unfinished walls and narrow high windows.

"And if I join them," he said, "then what?"

"Then, knight," the thing said, and laughed with all four of its heads. "Then, knight, thefun begins."

The building was higher than he had thought, and the walls were so thick that the windows were set deep into them, like sunken eyes. When he stood close to the wall he could hear noises inside, like a multitude sighing and crying.

Shadows began circling above. Now he knew what they were. Ignoring them, he began walking round the building, looking for a way in.

There was just one door. He found it after walking almost completely round the structure. It was huge, almost twice his height, and of wood the colour of iron, set with immense iron spikes. But when he pushed at it with his gauntlet, it swung open silently.

Inside, he stopped, blinking. And despite all he’d seen over the unending years of the journey, he couldn’t hold back a gasp of shock.

The yard was a pile of corpses. Some of them were dead. A lot more were only half dead. And another of the things squatted on the pile, grinning.

"A knight," it said, from its human head. The head was of a very beautiful woman. "How very pleasant."

"Told you so," a voice said from behind and above. He resisted the temptation to look back. It would be the first one, which had been sitting on the wall and must now be crouching on the roof above the yard. "Great fun, isn’t it? He wants to stop us."

"Of course he will," the woman’s head said. The clawed wing meditatively picked at a body, which was still not quite dead. "Of course he will."

"Just what we needed, a knight to play with," the one behind him said. "I was getting quite bored."

He glanced quickly round the yard, trying not to look at the corpses, which had been made corpses in imaginatively gruesome ways. It was lined by narrow windows, and he saw movement behind some of them. A hand, small as a child’s, waved frantically.

"I thought knights were supposed to be on our side," the woman-headed thing said in mock complaint. "Aren’t we supposed to be the good ones?"

"I’m on the side of justice," he said. "Whatever that is, this isn’t justice."

"Ah, but it’s fun." The woman-headed thing stretched some of its wings. Its body glowed bright beneath them, so bright that it was difficult to look at it. "It’s so much fun that you –"

It did not say anything more. It did not say anything more because the sword of nameless metal had sliced deep into its body just below the head. It merely tumbled over backward, thrashed a little, and died.

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